I'm passing this on in the interest of full disclosure, but color me highly skeptical on it.
Could it be? Could Kate be the first future Jewish Queen to take to the throne?
As
they say in England, “not bloody likely, mate!” It seems that at least
the last five generations of Goldsmith’s family were married in
churches, with no sign of a synagogue anywhere in sight.
Still,
there are those who, citing the Spanish Inquisition where many Jews were
forced to hide their true identities, are undeterred from their theory
that Kate is Jewish, as was her mother. There is even an Orthodox
Sephardic Rabbi in Israel who insists that Kate's parents were both
Jewish.
And, speaking of Jewish Princesses, another source even
claims that the late Princess Diana's mother, Frances Shand Kydd, was
Jewish – and was born as Frances Ruth Burke Roche, one of the
Rothschilds.
So, let’s recap. It’s still entirely possible that
Kate, the future Queen of England, is Jewish, while England’s future
king, Prince William, was born to what halacha would consider a Jewish
mother in Lady Di, making him a future Jewish king!
Hmmm. And, now, with Kate expecting…would that make Prince Charles a zaidie?
In an earlier post, I reported that the newlywed British royals William and Kate would be spending their honeymoon in Jordan. Sunday's JPost reported (print edition only) that the honeymoon is postponed because William has to fly some search and rescue missions this week. As it turns out, that excuse is every bit as flimsy as it sounds. The Sunday Telegraph reports that the real reason the honeymoon has been postponed is security.
The sudden change, announced on Saturday, came despite aides having said consistently that the honeymoon would immediately follow the wedding, and Miss Middleton shopping for sundresses and bikinis last week.
There was speculation it may have been prompted by security concerns.
The couple were originally believed to have booked a honeymoon in Jordan, where the Duchess lived for two years as a child.
The trip was thought to have included visits to the Wadi-Rum desert and the ancient city of Petra.
However, potential security hazards surrounding the continuing unrest throughout the Middle East may have prompted them to rethink their plans.
The couple left Buckingham Palace on Saturday morning after an evening reception on Friday night that lasted until after 3am.
The article goes on to say that they plan to take the trip overseas [to Jordan - unless they now change it] within a month. I doubt anything will improve there in the next month. If anything, it's only likely to get worse.
I said they should have come to Israel. His mother, the late Princess Diana, would have approved.
Okay, this is a shameless pitch for traffic. Here's the schedule for the royal wedding, which starts in about 40 minutes at 10:10 am BST. Below, I have embedded the livestream video of the wedding so that you can all watch it right here.
The Royal Wedding Schedule: (All Times BST) 10:10 - Prince William and Prince Harry leave Clarence House for Westminster Abbey. 10:15 - Prince William and Prince Harry arrive at the Abbey. 10:20 - Members of foreign royal families arrive at Westminster Abbey from Buckingham Palace. 10:20 - Kate Middleton's mother, Carole, and brother, James, leave the Goring Hotel for Westminster Abbey. 10:25 - Minor members of the Royal Family leave Buckingham Palace for Westminster Abbey. 10:35 - The Duke of York and his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, leave for Westminster Abbey along with the Earl and Countess of Wessex, the Princess Royal and Vice-Admiral Timothy Laurence. 10:38 - The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall leave Clarence House for Westminster Abbey. 10:40 - The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh leave Buckingham Palace for Westminster Abbey. 10:48 - The bridesmaids and pages leave the Goring Hotel for Westminster Abbey. 10:51 - The bride, accompanied by her father Michael, leaves the Goring Hotel for Westminster Abbey. 11:00 - The marriage service begins and is relayed by speakers along the route. 12:15 - The carriage procession of the bride and bridegroom with a captain's escort of the Household Cavalry, followed by the Queen's procession with a sovereign's escort of the Household Cavalry, leaves Westminster Abbey for Buckingham Palace. 12:30 - The bride's carriage procession arrives at Buckingham Palace. 12:40 - Members of the Royal Family and members of foreign royal families arrive at Buckingham Palace. 13:25 - The Queen and the bride and bridegroom, together with their families, appear on the balcony. 13:30 - Fly-past by the Royal Air Force and Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
Would you believe that both Israel Radio and Television are broadcasting this live?
Okay, I have three livestreams for you. Let's go to the videotape.
The last two livestreams are both from Hulu, and if you are outside the US you may have problems accessing them. If you have problems, go here for solutions.
Tony Blair, Gordon Brown not invited to royal wedding because....
Britain's two most recent Prime Ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, are not invited to Friday's royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton.
There are two different explanations for the non-invite. According to al-Guardian, it's all a matter of protocol.
Ministerial sources accused Clarence House of a blunder in declining to invite Labour's longest serving prime minister and his successor because they are not Knights of the Garter.
Sir John Major and Baroness Thatcher, who are members of Britain's highest order of chivalry, have been invited. Major, appointed guardian to Princes William and Harry after the death of their mother, will attend. Thatcher will not attend on health grounds.
One senior Whitehall source told the Guardian: "This is courtier lunacy. It beggars belief that St James's Palace is saying … that the wedding is not a formal state occasion and … that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have not been invited because they are not Knights of the Garter."
Labour MPs have rejected a claim by St James's Palace that it is wrong to draw a parallel with the royal wedding in 1981 when all five former surviving prime ministers were invited. Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath and James Callaghan attended the Prince of Wales's marriage to Lady Diana Spencer which was a formal state occasion because he is heir to the throne.
Chris Bryant, Labour's former Europe minister, told the Daily Mail: "Those who have been prime minister have served this country, and I think that the same proprieties that have been followed on previous occasions should have been followed again."
There is, however, a perfectly neat and plausible explanation, and it’s this.
Prince William cannot stand Tony Blair, whom he blames for making political capital out of the death of his mother – “the People’s Princess”, as Blair’s spin doctors dubbed her within hours of her death.
The Prince has a long memory and a capacity for cold fury. We catch a glimpse of it in the section of Blair’s memoirs relating to the week after Diana’s death: “I had also spoken to William who was not only still grieving but angry. He knew, rationally, why the week between Diana’s death and the funeral had to be as it had been. But he felt acutely the conflict between public position and private emotion.”
That anger is likely to have reawakened by Blair’s decision to record such a private conversation in the book. It is not hard to imagine William saying “I’m not having that man at my wedding” – and getting his way: after all, in nearly 60 years, only one of the Queen’s prime ministers has twisted her arm to persuade her to do something that went against her instincts, and that was Tony Blair virtually demanding that she broadcast to the nation after the death of William’s mother. And can anyone doubt that the Royal family dislikes blabbermouth Cherie more than any other prime ministerial spouse?
My guess is that the Blairs were never on the wedding list, and that this also explains the absence of the Browns. Inviting Brown but not Blair would have brought the feud into the open: the Palace could not even have trotted out its implausible Knights of the Garter story. If I’m right, then one can’t help feeling a bit sorry for Gordon and Sarah, who are being punished for the crimes of their predecessors. But perhaps they saw it coming: one doesn’t have to spend long in royal company to know that forgiveness doesn’t come easily to the Windsors.
A “Who’s Who” of Arab dictators are invited to tomorrow’s British royal wedding, at the advice of the British Foreign office. But Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are not invited for the “crime” of overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
Hmmm. You can read more about some of those dictators at Tom's site and also here. The Syrian ambassador to London has earned the distinction of being the first person ever to have his invitation to a royal wedding withdrawn on the day before the wedding. More on that story here.
The British royal boycott of Israel and the Princess who saved Jews from the Nazis
In an earlier post, I reported that William and Kate are to honeymoon in Jordan and wondered - kind of tongue in cheek - why they would not stay in Israel instead. As it turns out, the Royal family, under the direction of the British foreign office, is still boycotting Israel, and apparently has been since 1948. The only royal to visit here was the Duke of Edinburgh - Prince Phillip, husband of Queen Elizabeth - who came here to visit the grave of his mother Princess Alice in 1994. That would be William's great grandmother. And as it turns out Princess Alice saved Jews from the Nazis in Greece during World War II.
After the princess died in 1969, her remains lay at first in St George's Chapel, Windsor. But her final wish had been to be buried at the White Russian convent on the Mount of Olives, near her Aunt Elizabeth, cousin of the last Tsar of imperial Russia. Grand Duchess Elizabeth was murdered by the Bolsheviks and declared a Russian Orthodox saint.
The Jerusalem burial was finally arranged after an extraordinary diplomatic and religious dance, involving a deal between the Russian and Greek orthodox churches to share the ceremonies, and agreement that Israel handle security.
At the time, the Palestinian intifada was at its height, and the Mount of Olives was a stronghold of militancy. The princess's remains were transported by a British Airways jet from London, and, under the eyes of Israeli agents, were carried into the church by Jewish pallbearers wearing skullcaps.
...
The second factor that has brought about the visit relates to Princess Alice herself: new revelations of her past self-sacrifice have led Israel to honour her as a 'righteous gentile' - one of 12,000 non-Jews judged to have displayed bravery in helping to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust.
In 1943 Princess Alice, estranged from her husband, Prince Andrew of Greece, was living alone in Nazi-occupied Athens, working with the poor. She opened her house to three Jewish friends and protected them for a year. Her bravery, however, did not come to light until recently.
Princess Alice courted no publicity. 'It was just a Christian thing to do,' says Mother Anna, Abbess of St Mary Magdalene Convent. It was only when a relative of the Jews she protected, suggested that a street in Jerusalem be named after Princess Alice, that the story of her bravery emerged.
If William and Kate decide they want to come here to visit his great grandmother's grave, I'd be happy to escort them. I suspect that William's mother would have approved.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
